Fast Five and the Case of the Misplaced Calendar

This weekend saw the release of Fast Five, the fourth sequel in the Fast and the Furious franchise. These movies have become the gold standard for Hollywood movies featuring cars going really fast for an audience made up of guys who's vocabulary consists at least 50% of "Bro." As would be expected, the marketing for said movie featured of lot of fast cars, explosions, sexy women, and Vin Diesel and The Rock sizing each other up, which if you turn the sound off it looks like they're trying to ask each other to dance. Also, Paul Walker is still getting work somehow. Good to know. Anyway, it's exactly how you would expect someone to market this kind of film.

But then they drop the bombshell by informing you that this film is the "start of the summer movie season!"

For those of you not by you're calendar, the film was released yesterday, which was April 29th. APRIL.

I think Hollywood has forgotten when summer actually happens. Do you know when the first day of summer is? June 21st. ALMOST TWO GODDAMN MONTHS AWAY. Seriously, calendars are not expensive. Just show up at a Borders that is closing and walk off with one, they won't stop you.

"But Tim", you are asking even though no one asked you, "the summer season has been starting earlier and earlier every year. Like Christmas!" Well, why the hell should we just accept that? Why is that a good thing? Because the earlier and earlier Christmas starts every year, the more people end up getting burned out by the time the actual thing finally gets here. At least starting the summer on Memorial Day Weekend makes some sense, as it is a long weekend filled with what is often the first barbecues of the year. And since many have that Monday off, the box office tends to do well. Ok, fine. Now you're less than a month off, I can live with that. But this year, two of the years biggest movies are rolling out before Memorial Day Weekend; Thor and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Starting earlier and earlier runs the risk of creating blockbuster fatigue, which guess what Hollywood, that's a bad thing.

Audiences are already suffering some blockbuster fatigue. With the exception of Inception, last summer was brutal for the summer blockbuster. Remember Knight and Day? No one does. To be fair, this summer looks like it will be better in terms of box office success, with the above mentioned movies, Captain America, the final Harry Potter movie, and Transformers: You Idiots Keep Giving Us Money To Make These Shitty Movies So Here's Another One. Of course, these are all sequels or franchise films, so take that how you will. But those aren't coming out for a couple months at the earliest. So the summer just keeps getting longer and longer (and people say global warming is a hoax). And the longer anything keeps going on, the quicker Americans with their short attention spans start wanting something else.

I mean hell, last year some of the Oscar nominated films out grossed the summer blockbusters (For example, The King's Speech grossed over $138 million. Prince of Persia grossed under $91 million.) That never happens any more. But the summer has gotten so long, so crammed full of interchangeable action films, that it is getting harder and harder to muster the enthusiasm to care.

I'm facing this problem myself. While I am waiting to go see Captain America and Thor, my excitement pales in comparison to how much I was anticipating Inception last year. I've been burned out by too many blockbusters taking up a larger and larger portion of the year. We need variety, or else anything can become stale.

But variety has never been a strong point for Hollywood. And with theater attendance down, the studios are likely trying to rush into the summer season, which tends to be where they make their money. They want to skip over the rest of the year. But it won't work. I'm sure Fast Five will be Number 1 at the box office this weekend. But now they have a much longer stretch of time to carry the momentum.

Or who knows. Maybe they're starting early because they know the world is going to end before Memorial Day gets here. Those crafty buggers.

Ego and The End

Well, it's Easter weekend, but more importantly, we are only one month away from the end of the world. Or, to be a tad more specific, the second coming of Christ (the end of the world comes in October, duh). The countdown has truly begun. For believers, it is one month until they are reunited with their Savior. For the rest of us, it's one month until we are reunited with Captain Jack Sparrow.

But while the majority of us either scoff at or completely ignore the idea of these so called End Times, we should remember that there are plenty who take this seriously. Seriously enough to prepare their kids for the event. Now, parenting is hard. Parents have to get their kids ready for all the crap that goes on in the world, which is not easy. And part of this means dealing with religion; whether you support it or not, sooner or later you will need to address the notion of God with your kid. This is difficult enough as it is, but to tell them that oh, by the way, the world is going to end next month, so we won't be going to Disney World this summer after all, seems like a terrible approach.

Let's look at it this way. Assume that May 21 IS the Second Coming, the beginning of the End Times. From my understanding, children are considered innocent, so any sins they may have committed are intrinsically forgiven. They don't need to "prepare themselves" for the event, it's already assumed that they will be saved in the Rapture. So to tell them they only have so much time left seems cruel. They are robbed of fully enjoying the limited childhood they have.

And if the Rapture doesn't come? (Which it won't) Well, now you've essentially lied to your children. It's like if a kid wakes up on Christmas morning to see that Santa didn't bring any presents; their faith is shattered. If you want your kid to life a live dutifully believing in God and Jesus and the Easter Bunny, making these kinds of promises that don't get kept will be extremely counter-productive. "You lied about the Second Coming, what else did you lie to me about, Mom and Dad? I hate you I hate you I hate you!"

This really seems like a lose-lose situation to me. Why bother explaining all this to your kid? The only thing I can come up with it is ego-trip. These people want to seem important, and have latched onto this idea of Doomsday, so the feel a compulsion to preach to anyone and everyone, including their children, even though this knowledge does nothing to help them, and could actually drive them away from your beliefs in the (certain) event that you are wrong.

Now, to be fair, keeping this a secret might not be a plausible option, since billboards warning of our impending doom have been plastered across the country. Again, the logic seems to be missing in this approach. I assume the point is to get people to repent before it is too late. But let's say this works. Let's say someone is driving down the freeway, sees one of these billboards and goes "Shit! The end is nigh! I need to repent before it is too late!" Well, if the only reason he is repenting is because he fears the end of the world is upon us, that isn't really repenting. It's self-preservation. Repenting means being truly and genuinely remorseful for something you've done, not because you are afraid of repercussions. Again, this seems to me to be more about ego, more about appearing superior, which I guess explains a good chunk of religious behavior, really.

And if they want to act superior for the next month, they can go right ahead. Because on May 22, that sense of superiority will evaporate pretty quickly, and, because I am a terrible person, I will enjoy watching them deal with the aftermath and fallout at having been full of crap. Or, on the (infinitesimally small) chance they might be right, well, they kind of earned it.

All I know is I'll be at the Indians game with my free Choo jersey and a beer in my hand on May 21, so bring it End of the World.

An Open Question to High School Douchebags

I've recently gotten back into a pretty good running regiment, and back into decent shape. Enough so that I actually enjoy going on runs (hurray for me!). However, the past, oh, ten times I've gone for a run, I've been passed by high school kids driving in their car and honking at me. And so my question is: Why?

It isn't a big deal, I understand that. But it is rather annoying, and most irritatingly, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. Not that I can see. So come on, high schoolers, let's figure this out.

I mean, is it meant as some sign of support? A "way to go" signal, a sort of audible fist pump? I guess that's nice, but not really appreciated. To have a horn blare behind me as I'm running, listening to music, and kind of zoning out is a bit of a startle. Makes you jump. I don't like it.

Is it you mocking me? That would be my best guess, as just about every high school kid in my area is a douchebag. I won't go to movies anywhere near opening weekend anymore because I'm tired of their "too cool for this" attitude, how they just talk and laugh during the whole thing. If it's so "gay" fuckface, then WHY DID YOU BOTHER TO PAY $10 FOR IT.

And what exactly would you be mocking me for? Exercising? Staying in shape? I didn't realize trying to be not obese and hopefully avoid developing diabetes and not die at the age of 40 was a laughable form of anti-social behavior. "Look at that asshole being healthy. He will outlive us despite being at least six years older. We shall laugh at him."

( I suppose I should mention that in each case of drive by honking, it was high school guys in the car. Take that to mean what you will)

Is it perhaps jealousy? A passive-aggressive form of dealing with some sort of envy? Maybe it just pisses you off to see someone perform a feat that you can't, which in this case would be a little sad seeing as I don't think I'm even running two miles. And if this is the case, maybe it would be a better use of your time to get off your ass and actually do something instead of honking car horns at people.

I mean, what is it? Why is this something I need to continually put up with? Because while this is a very trivial complaint, it then needs at least a trivial reason. Any reason. Just so I know why I keep having Layla or Feel Good Inc. interrupted by your irritating gesture.

Thanks for your time. I look forward to your answer

China Bans Time Travel, Because Of Course They Did

There has been a lot in the news in the past weeks. Continued unrest in Libya and the Middle East. A near government shutdown in the U.S. due to political squabbling. Continuing nuclear issues in Japan. The Royal Wedding (OMG!). But among all these there was a story that stuck out, even if it was lost under all the other headlines. It stuck out due to it's Onion-esque ridiculousness, but was very real. And that was that China is banning time travel.

That's right. TV shows and movies that depict time travel will be no more in China, or at least, will face very strict scrutiny. The reason for this? Apparently the Chinese government feels that these time travel stories are disrespectful to history, because they depict things that didn't actually happen in said history. They are "treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore." Right. Makes total sense.

No wait, the opposite of that. This makes no sense at all. If they find time travel stories disrespectful because they depict things that didn't actually happen, then ANY fictional story would be just as disrespectful. Any TV show or movie set in the present time would be disrespectful to the present, as the events shown are not actually occurring in reality.

More importantly, everything becomes history at some point. Fifty years from now, current events will be seen as historical, so any contemporary stories made about the present will be about the past in the future (that was fun to write). So if China wants to take their history so seriously, the will eventually have to ban every fictional story ever, as they will all eventually be about a past time period.

Of course, this is China, so that very well could be their end game, and this is merely the first step. However, if they want to convince the rest of the world that there is a reason beyond blatant censorship for doing this, they're going to need to do a much better job.